It published expensively produced reprints of classic 19th-century editions, mostly translations, of Old Norse literary and historical works, Northern European folklore, and medieval literature.
[2][3] He spearheaded the "large literary venture"[4] as part of his lifelong aim to educate an unfamiliar American audience about the culture, history and pre-Christian religion of Northern Europe, publishing a wide range of works on these subjects.
One contemporary reviewer described the mission of his publishing project as “resurrecting, reproducing, collecting and collating or indexing every thing that pertained to the early history of the Anglo Saxon, Celtic, Teutonic, and Scandinavian races—to furnish the people of Northern Europe with their own vital history.”[5] It has been spuriously claimed[5] that the Norrœna Society was an international organization of members founded by Oscar II in addition to being a publishing house.
"[6] To further this pretence, the imprint of the Norrœna Society's publications gives false offices in countries such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Berlin, and the majority of their editions contain a frontispiece stating that the volumes were “privately printed for members”.
[7] Anderson himself used the term to apply to medieval Northern European literature, which he also referred to as Anglo-Saxon classics, according to faceplates in all volumes of the Norrœna Library.
Rasmus Anderson acted as editor-in-chief of the Norrœna Library,[8] a multi-volume subscription set, which he considered “the crowning part of my efforts in the service of Scandinavian literature.”[9] Eight of the volumes were his own translations.
Various bibliographic references to these sets list either fifteen or sixteen volumes (the sixteenth being The Flatey Book and recently discovered Vatican Manuscripts concerning America as early as the tenth century, etc.).
Norrœna Embracing the History and Romance of Northern Europe” with the words “privately printed for members” at the base of the illustration.